


Black holes and expectations

by comeaftermejackrobinson



Series: Definition of madness [2]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post-Season/Series 03, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-09-06 14:04:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8755447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeaftermejackrobinson/pseuds/comeaftermejackrobinson
Summary: He spends most of his trip to London writing about his feelings for her. He misses her terribly, misses talking to her, so he plays pretend: what would he say to her if she was there and he had no other weapons than his own words, no Shakespeare quotes to borrow? What would he say to her if he had no fears?





	1. Chapter 1

A **black hole** is a region of [ spacetime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime) exhibiting such strong [ gravitational](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation) effects that nothing—not even [ particles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle) and [ electromagnetic radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation) such as light—can escape from inside it.

 

 

 **expectation** **  
** _noun_  

ex·pec·ta·tion \ˌek-ˌspek-ˈtā-shən, ik-\

  
Definition of EXPECTATION

  1. the act or state of expecting: anticipation <in expectation of what would happen>
  2. a:  something expected <not up to expectations> <expectations for an economic recovery>  
b:  basis for expecting: assurance <they have every expectation of success>  
c:  prospects of inheritance —usually used in plural
  3. the state of being expected



 

 

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

 

 

_The definition of a crazy person is_

_Someone who does the same thing_

_Over and over again_

_While expecting new results_

 

 _I cut off my hair -_ Regina Spektor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> Phryne.
> 
>  
> 
> I've been calling you that in my head for such a long time, yet I still shake like a leaf every time I taste your name in my mouth,  on the tip of my tongue. I can count on the fingers of one hand all the times it has been there- in my mouth, on my lips. It has a million properties- just like the nectar of a rare flower. Just like you. Some I have discovered, others I haven't (yet). It is bittersweet and intoxicating and addictive and it makes me drunk and lightheaded. It is you. It is all you.
> 
>  
> 
> It also is all I've thought about since we parted ways in the airfield. You are in my mind all of the time, have been since the day we met. I think of you constantly, and a long time has passed since I stopped fighting against it. I can't fight what you do to me, I am not strong enough. I don't want to fight it, or you, either. I have spent most of my life fighting- first the war, then my failed marriage, then my feelings for you- and I am tired. I don't want to fight this, or you, anymore.
> 
>  
> 
> I used to write before the war happened, but then once I came back home I just couldn't do it anymore, and pen and paper just were meaningless elements I filled in case files and reports with. But now I feel the need to write again. To you. Maybe it will help me make sense of this madness that is swallowing me whole. Maybe it will help me pass the time until I fall back into your arms or pull you into mine. I don't know how to put down in words everything I'm feeling, but I'm afraid I'll explode if I don't. You give me all the feelings at the same time, you rob me off my coherence and I become as messy as this ink stained sheet of paper. But it's something that I have to try.
> 
>  
> 
> After the horrors I saw in the battlefield, something within me changed forever. I am sure I don't have to explain this to you: you can understand, you were there. You know what it is like. The fear, the uncertainties, the desperation, the cruelty, the survivor's guilt. I made it back home, but others didn't. Why me? I wasn't different, we all had the same training and stood the same chance, but some of us made it out of there alive and others perished in the trenches. I don't have to tell you what it is like to see those men die, desperately crying for their loved ones. I still have nightmares about a soldier’s last moments from time to time- sometimes it’s someone I knew, sometimes it’s just a man with no face, sometimes the man that’s dying it’s me. The most horrible thing is that it feels less like a nightmare and more like a relief when I am the one down, because it means I don’t have to see the light going off in another human being’s eyes.
> 
>  
> 
> I shut down completely. I didn’t want to talk about it and it angered me when my wife asked me why I was bothered by this, why I was triggered by that. And then when she stopped asking questions it angered me that she didn’t seem to care anymore, that she seemed to have decided to leave me alone. We became estranged after the war for a lot of reasons. We looked for excuses to stay together, and it was a frustrating, disappointing and hurtful process because we found none. I had changed, I wasn’t the man she had married. There wasn’t a connection between us after the war because there hadn’t even been one before the war to begin with, and that truth was exposed and we could do nothing about it.
> 
>  
> 
> The demons I had brought back home with me from the war were still battling inside of me and since I wouldn’t open up with anyone, there was no way they would escape. I felt imprisoned- by my marriage, by my thoughts, by everything. I was trapped inside myself, choking on words I would never say, tormented by fears I would never share, drowning in the tears I was too coward to cry. I never admitted I needed help. I hid in plain sight, I pretended I was doing good. If I could be good at my work then no one would notice just how damaged I truly was. I was nothing but a shell, pieces of the man I could have been. I lived in the dark, chased by shadows. I had no hope. There was no light in my life and I didn’t even remember how light looked like, how its warmth felt, how bright it could be, how very necessary it was for things to thrive.
> 
>  
> 
> I didn’t like how I was living, what I was doing to myself- hated it, in fact. Some days I cried myself to sleep, tormented by guilt because I was throwing away a second chance that for some reason I had been given while others hadn’t. I was alive but I wasn’t living. I knew things wouldn’t change unless I did something different, and yet I kept doing everything the same way every single day. I wanted to break the circle but I did nothing to break it- if anything I kept on fueling it up with my fears and my anger and those ugly, dark emotions that haunted me like ghosts everywhere I went. How could I expect something to change if I didn’t change a single thing myself? I was blind and stupid and a fool. I was on the verge of insanity and I was doing absolutely nothing to prevent falling even deeper into a bottomless pit.
> 
>  
> 
> And then along came you. My saviour. My starlight. You changed me completely. I was going crazy and you gave me my sanity back. You made me see I was going nowhere but that I could change that if I wanted, that it wasn’t too late for me. You gave my life new perspective. I cannot begin to tell you everything you’ve done for me, Phryne, how you have saved me over and over time and again. Falling in love with you saved me from myself, from the darkness, from the madness. Loving you is a different kind of madness altogether, the sort that keeps you alive and fuels you up with the desire to carry on. You frustrate me and infuriate me and drive me up a wall and I worry about you and I can’t stop thinking about you and I cannot bare the thought of ever losing you, and I love you, Phryne. I am desperately, hopelessly in love with you. You proved to me that I wasn’t empty, after all. I still have a heart, I can feel emotions that aren’t raw and horrible, but intoxicatingly beautiful. I’m still human.
> 
>  
> 
> I fought against it- against you- at first. I came up with millions of excuses. I tried to put distance between us. I tried to keep things professional, I tried not to let you consume me. (I never stood a chance, really. I can see that now). But you didn’t give up on me, and you made me see it was time to break the circle, it was time to end the madness. It was time to do things differently. So here I am, Phryne. I have decided to chase you, my love, my starlight. I’m going after you. I’m tired of fighting, I’m tired of denying this to myself. I’m just tired and I want to be in your arms, the only place where I could finally rest and be in peace. This may be the craziest thing I have ever done in all of my life, I don’t know, but it’s different from everything else I have already done and that took me nowhere, so it’s worth the try, don’t you think? It may sound like a new level of insanity for some people, but to me going after you is proving to be freeing. It’s madness, yes, but it’s the kind of madness that makes you want to cry one minute and laugh the next and then you feel like crying again, and you know you’re alive. You make me appreciate the fact that I’m alive.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m going after you, love. I won’t let anything stop me now. There’s no time or space left for fears. I just want you. If I’m going to go completely mad, if I’m going to lose my head, then I want it to be for you. I don’t want to look back one day and realize I made a terrible mistake because I didn’t dare doing something different. I cannot keep doing the same things over and over again, that’s just madness. I want another kind of madness, I want the kind of madness that is all you. And I don’t care what the future holds, whatever it’s out there waiting for me it’s by far better than what I’m leaving behind.
> 
>  
> 
> I was too busy being terrorized to be alive, and I was going mad. Now I just want you to hold you and fall into madness with you. You woke me from a very long nightmare that I thought would last forever. You gave me hope. You are my everything, sweetheart, and I’m going after you.
> 
>  

 

 

 

 

_I'll never let you go_

_If you promise not to fade away_

_Never fade away_

_Our hopes and expectations_

_Black holes and revelations_

_Hold you in my arms_

_I just want to hold you in my arms_

  
_Starlight_ \- Muse


	2. Chapter 2

“The moon is a loyal companion.

It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.

Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

Tahereh Mafi

  


“I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer

  


“Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars."

E.E. Cummings

 

 

_Humming a slightly varied tune_

_Opposite angles of the moon_

_Buried in layers of ourselves_

_Leaves room for no one else_

 

 _True romance -_ Motion City Soundtrack

 

 

 

 

 

 

> I wonder exactly where in the world you are right now, and how you are, and I envy the moon because she knows. She can look down at you whenever she pleases and rejoice herself in your immense, infinite beauty. I wish it were that easy for me. I wish that I could be as omnipresent as the moon, come up in the sky at night and just watch you and marvel at your exquisite existence. I wonder how many steps are in between us now. Is it night where you are, too? Are we looking up at the same sky, the same stars, the same moon? Are you thinking of me now, too?
> 
>  
> 
> I just realized that I have never spent so much time without seeing you, or hearing your voice, before. You became a constant in my life without either of us even noticing it was happening (at least _I_ didn’t notice), and now I am completely doomed: I can’t imagine my life without you. I can’t imagine anything without you. I hunger for your taste, and the smell of your perfume, and the warmth of your eyes. My arms feel heavy and empty ever since you walked out of my embrace and onto the airplane. I held you so briefly, and our farewell kiss was even briefer, and yet I am experiencing withdrawal symptoms because I think our emotional connection traces back to the very first nightcap we shared at your parlour. For even if I am desperate to kiss you, and caress you, and make love to you until we both are rendered senseless, what I miss the most is just talking to you. Those other things I want, I have only dreamed of them, imagined them, but talking to you is something I have experienced and that I have come to depend on, an essential part of my existence. (Yes, we have kissed, but both times it was so brief, and it knocked the air out of my lungs and rendered me speechless and thoughtless and sometimes I am not entirely sure I wasn’t dreaming, just like most of the time I’m not entirely sure you are not someone I am dreaming up. And, as usual, I feel like I’m not making any sense because even writing about you seems to leave me senseless).
> 
>  
> 
> Silence has always been a favorite weapon of mine. I’ve never been an outgoing, extrovert person, even as a kid. My twin sister was the talkative one, she had all of our parents’ attention, and I just listened. I’m a good listener, I think. But I’ve always kept to myself, chosen silence every time I could. I never talked much to my former wife. She never cared much for my interests because she did not share them and found them rather boring and dull- she once said- in a joking manner, and trying to sooth the wounds she inflicted by kissing me affectionately on the cheek right afterwards- that some of them were a waste of time. I’ve never liked to consider myself a time waster, so I stopped talking to her about those things. I never talked to her about the horrors of the war either, because it was hard for me revisiting the memories of the trenches, the dead soldiers, the lost lives and the atrocities.
> 
>  
> 
> But with you, talking just seems easy. The words come to me naturally, and I feel comfortable. I feel like I’m listened, too, and not just there to listen. I trust you completely: with my life, with my thoughts, with my career, with my cases, with my heart. You do that to me, Phryne. I can talk to you about anything and everything just like the poets talk about love to the moon. You make me feel like I could tell you absolutely anything, and you wouldn’t judge me, you wouldn’t say it’s unimportant, or boring, or dull, or a waste of time. Every time I talk to you, my heart feels lighter. It had never happened before you. A lot of things happened to me for the first time after I met you- because I met you. Finding that I can talk freely about things, wanting to share them with another person- those are just a few of the things that you helped me discover.
> 
>  
> 
> You remind me of the moon in so many ways, Phryne. You're always there, you are everywhere- bright, and beautiful, and warm, the most exquisite thing in the universe. There are so many sides to you, and I doubt a single person has ever seen them all. I wonder if I'll ever see all of you; I suspect you will always remain a mystery to me, just like the moon is a mystery to poets and writers and artists alike. And I find that I don't mind, because I love the sides of you I can't see as much as I love everything else I have seen. I love all of you, and perhaps I will never tell you so, perhaps you will never know. But I do. I love you with the same burning, aching, desperate passion that I thought was only found in novels and poetry. You have shown me the moon inspires poets and writers to muse about things that can be real and felt outside of the pages of their works. You make love seem real and true to me. You have made my heart feel something deeper and terrifying and amazing, it almost tastes as good and as fictional as literature itself. But it also tastes real. Just like the moon. Just like you, my love.
> 
>  
> 
> I am looking at the moon right now, and I wonder once again if you're looking at it too, and if it looks as big and as breathtaking there where you are as it looks here where I am. We may be far away, but it's the same moon up in the sky every night. The moon I am looking at now is the same moon that shines on you, the same moon that lit the skies when Cleopatra was the Queen of the Nile and her beauty was like nothing the world had ever seen. Just like yours. I have never seen something as beautiful as you- you are unique. And that is one more reason why you remind me of the moon: the only of its kind, just like you.
> 
>  
> 
> I hope time passes by quickly so we can reunite soon. Maybe I'll take you out for a walk at night to look at the stars. Maybe I'll kiss you softly until we are both out of breath, my hands cupping your face and your hands running through my hair and messing it up a bit. Maybe we'll spend hours under the stars talking in whispers, sharing little secrets about each other. And I'll kiss the tip of your nose in between words as I tell you things I've never told anyone before. And you'll look at me with those eyes that I adore so, and you'll take my hand in yours and will say something about my heart running as deep as the Pacific Ocean, and then I'll kiss you until we both are out of air because you will have left me speechless. Just like you always do. Just like the moon.
> 
>  
> 
> I can't wait to be with you, Phryne. The moon is a good listener but it doesn't compare to you. I need to hear your voice, I need to hold you in my arms. I need to get lost in your eyes. I need you. And it is not something I have ever told a person before. I have never needed anybody, I've always been a loner, I've always been good by myself- it wasn't that terrible an idea, being by myself with my books, and my garden, and my thoughts. But you came along and messed with my whole world. You changed my plans, you changed what I wanted. You changed me. I don't know how you did it- I guess it was magic, I guess I'll never know. And now I need you so much I whisper to the moon about it in the hopes that she will do me the favour and tell you there's a man out there that adores you, and loves you, and misses you, and needs you.
> 
>  
> 
> The moon is looking down at me as I write these last couple of lines, and I wonder if she knows there is a woman out there that it's more beautiful than she is, more exquisite, and just as unique. I wonder if she knows this woman is the reason why the man in the ship is looking up at the sky and sighing and silently praying that she passes on his message to this woman, that she tells her that he needs and misses her, and that he is coming after her because he can't live without her warmth, and that he is trying to emulate novelists and poets by putting pen to paper and writing down every single word he wishes he could tell her. Every single word he hopes he works up the courage to say to her some day.
> 
>  
> 
> I love you, my moon. I need you. I miss you. I am mad about you. I think it's incurable. (The moon seems to agree, she just whispered to me that it is. I don't want to be cured, though. I am finding that I feel comfortable with this madness just fine).

 

 

 

_These words are my own_

_From my heart flow_

_I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you_

_There's no other way_

_To better say_

_I love you, I love you_

 

 _These words -_ Natasha Bedingfield

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“It was the kiss of a man who had waited years for the moment, and feared that it would never come again.”

Jana Oliver

 

 

“How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.”

Victor Hugo

 

 

“And we were kissing like drowning people breathe—like suddenly we’d discovered something that has never been so sweet before that moment.”

Morgan Matson

 

 

_I kissed you in a style_

_Clark Gable would have admired_

_I thought it classic_

 

 _Clark Gable_ \- The Postal Service

 

 

 

 

> Kissing you for the first time was a lot like falling in love with you: out of character and unplanned. I really didn't see it coming, it just struck like lightning. To this day I still don't know if I did it to distract you and maintain our cover, or if it was a desperate act on my part to make sure you were still there: breathing and alive and _feeling_ and _with me_. You tasted like madness, and I must have tasted like nervousness and anxiety.
> 
>  
> 
> From that day forward I dreamed of your red lips every night. (You tasted impossible in my dreams. Forbidden. Unreachable). The memory ate at my flesh and bones until I was nothing but trembling nerves and muscles. It drove me crazy and it consumed my thoughts. _You consumed me_. (You still do. You always do).
> 
>  
> 
> The second kiss, that was just an act of surrender. I don't know what came over me- maybe it was fear. I used to fear wanting you, I've always feared losing you. Maybe I was just tired- what a waste, all the time I spent running away from you. What a stupid thing to do! There was no getting away, you always caught up. Every time I hid, you found me and dragged me back with you. I couldn't let you leave without trying one last attempt at a romantic overture. One more kiss under the Australian sunlit sky, that was all I wanted. (You tasted like the home you were about to fly out from. I hope I tasted like _yours_ , because that's the only thing I want to taste like forever: _yours_ ).
> 
>  
> 
> I went back to the city with your words echoing in my head, taking a hammer to my eardrums: _come after me_.
> 
>  
> 
> To me you are this exquisite, rare drug that I can't quit. I tried to give you up and couldn't. I tried to push you away and you didn't let me. Every time I made to leave, you gave me new reasons to stay. And I stayed. I always stay, love. I cannot quit you. I've never really wanted to. Impossible, forbidden, unreachable- I crave you, I want you. I'm yours.
> 
>  
> 
> I long for a third kiss, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a hundredth. The good, the flawed, the infuriating, the reckless… All in all, I long for you. I want the meaningful and the meaningless, the quiet and the gaudy. Whatever you want to give to me, I'll have. I long for a thousand more kisses with you. It’s a desire that clouds my mind and has got me at its mercy.
> 
>  
> 
> I want to kiss you in a million different ways, and take your breath away and fall asleep breathless in your arms every night. I want to wake up to you every morning and chase the taste of home away from home in your mouth. I want to trace your red lips with my fingertips. I want you all. I want to kiss you all. Taste you all. Fuck you all.
> 
>  
> 
> (I want to know what my kisses remind you of, and if I taste like _yours_ , like home, to you. And if you've ever dreamed of me. And if I tasted impossible, forbidden and unreachable in your dreams, like you did in mine).
> 
>  
> 
> What you do to me, Phryne, drives me crazy. _You_ drive me crazy. I never thought myself capable of feeling such madness. But your kisses- both real and imaginary- have bewitched me into jumping head first into the unknown. I’ve left Australia, I boarded this ship that is taking me far away from everything that is routinary and familiar to me, just because you asked me to. It was out of character and unplanned, just like me falling in love with you. (And I’m so glad that you did, just like I am glad I fell in love with you).
> 
>  
> 
> A hundred kisses, a thousand kisses, a million kisses, or just the one. Whatever you want to give to me Phryne, that’s what I’ll have. I won’t ask for more. It’ll be up to you if I die from withdrawal or from an overdose. I’ll willingly accept whatever you choose. The only thing I know for sure it’s that I want to drink from your lips before I die. (I have realized a long time ago that you will be the death of me, and I find that I’m finally at peace with that fact).

 

 

 

 

 

 _Oh, you're in my veins_  
_And I cannot get you out_  
_Oh, you're all I taste_  
_At night inside of my mouth_

 

 _In my veins -_   Andrew Belle


	4. Chapter 4

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”

A. A Milne

 

“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.”

Tupac Shakur

 

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”

Charles Dickens

  


_You’re the echoes of my everything_

_You’re the emptiness the whole world sings at night_

 

_You hold me down -_ Motion City Soundtrack

  


 

 

 

 

 

 

> The other day I dreamt that we walked hand in hand down a quiet London street, and the whole world is empty except for you and me. If I close my eyes and concentrate, I can feel your fingers intertwined with mine like I did in my dream. Will you go out on walks with me when we're in London? Will you show me around the city? I want to know what your favorite places are, and why they’re your favorite. I want to hear stories about the years you lived there and the things you used to do- the wild, the extraordinary, the legal, the illegal. I want to know everything there is to learn about you. I know I'll never be able to learn it all, for you are like a mystery to me and true mysteries are never completely solved, but I want to try. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to solve the beautiful mystery of you.
> 
> In my dreams I call you mine, and when I wake up I often wonder if I'm allowed to do so. My love, my Phryne, my moon, my everything. Mine. I know it sounds possessive, but please darling don't believe for a second that I claim to own you. I don't. That is the only thing I'd never dream about. You are a free spirit and I love you just the way you are. You belong to no one but yourself, but I hope that (even if only for a brief moment) you think you belong with me. I do think we belong together, and it's one of the most wonderful feelings I have ever had.
> 
> I was numb when we first met, and I didn't dare dream or hope. About anything. For anything. I used to think maybe the war had damaged something within me- whatever it is that makes us humans have dreams and hopes-, and that then my failed marriage had destroyed it for good. I thought it was gone forever. I'm not sure that it wasn't. Maybe it was asleep and it woke up from its slumber when you showed up- uninvited, unannounced- to change my life. Maybe it really was shattered to pieces but it came back to life, reshaped itself from its ashes, with your help. I don't know how it happened, exactly. I just know that ever since our paths crossed, everything changed for me. And now I dare dream, and now I dare hope. And I dream of you and hope for you. All my dreams, all my hopes- they're made of you. And numbness has been long ago forgotten, for you give me all the feelings at the same time.
> 
> I was scared at first, like a child when he or she wakes up from a nightmare. I didn't know what to do: I was alive again all of a sudden. I had forgotten what it was like, how it felt like. Dreams and hope felt foreign to me. I must confess that sometimes even _you_ felt foreign to me. You were like a goddess out of an ancient tale, and I was just a mortal that had spent most of his adult life hiding- from dreams, from feelings, from hope, from love, from everything. There even was a time when I hid from you, my darling. What a coward I was! And what an idiot, too! To think I almost walked away from you for good simply because I was scared. I didn't realize it at the time (or maybe I did, and that was why I was so terrified), but in doing that I was walking away from the best thing that's ever happened in my life.
> 
> You gave me back my will to live for something other than my work. You gave me back my will to feel, and hope, and dream. You reminded me that I am human, that I am made of bones and muscle and nerves, and that I have a heart, and that I bleed. I'm not of steel, darling, like I thought for such a long time- you helped me see that. For so many years I had seen nothing but people on the worst day of their lives, crying for their loved ones and demanding answers for something so horrible they cannot understand how it's possible, how and why it happened to them. I had seen nothing but the awful things evil, wicked people do to others. I had seen pain, and hatred, and anger, and desperation. I had seen fear and regret, and madness and misery, and cruelty and greed. I had never seen love until I saw you.
> 
> You opened my eyes to so many new things. You showed me a world I had distanced myself from, one that is full of ordinary things that can be extraordinary when shared with the right person. You welcomed me back to the land of the living. You lured me out of my hiding place and taught me how to breathe, and feel, and hope, and dream, and how to just _be_ again. You gave me back my sense of belonging. You took a heart that was dormant and made it beat again. And now it beats, it beats, it beats, it beats to the rhythm of yours. My dreams and hope sound, and taste, and look like your name, your voice, your red lips, your tongue dancing against mine, your eyes.
> 
> Your eyes, darling, I want to see London through them. Little things otherwise ordinary will become extraordinary, interesting and beautiful when explained and shown to me by you. And every street, every corner, every place will be forever etched on my memory, on my heart, on my skin, and will forever be special because I will have shared them all with you. I dare dream and hope that London will be the city where I make love to you for the first time, and we hold hands, and we tell each other secrets, and we discover and rediscover each other over and over again. Maybe London will be the city where I learn if you’re ticklish, if your moans are quiet or loud when I make you come undone in my arms, if I shake and shiver when you make me come undone in yours.
> 
> It’s late now, my love. I need some sleep. I need to dream of you, and hope for you, and kiss you and call you mine. My heart beats to the rhythm of yours, and I feel alive, and I feel human.
> 
> Thank you, Phryne.
> 
> I love you to the moon and back.

  


 

 

_When I said ‘I can see me in your eyes’,_

_You said ‘I can see you in my bed’,_

_That’s not just friendship, that’s romance too,_

_You’re like music we dance to_

 

_I’ll try anything once_ \- The Strokes

 


	5. Chapter 5

“I crave the simplest of love with you- A cold night, warm sheets, and your skin against my own. Certainly, that is all I could ever ask for.”

Daniel Walsh

 

“The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

“Long after you’ve forgotten someone’s voice, you still can remember the sound of their happiness or their sadness. You can feel it in your body.”

Anne Michaels

 

_I hope you don't mind_

_That I put down in words_

_How wonderful life is_

_While you're in the world_

 

 _My song_ \- Elton John

  


 

 

 

 

> I close my eyes at night and let the memory of your voice wash over me. It makes me miss you more, crave you more. If I focus long enough I swear I can almost taste it. I can almost touch it. But the memory slips away and I am left alone missing you, craving you- perhaps more than I ever did before I invited it- _you-_ into my thoughts.
> 
>  
> 
> There was this lad I met in the war. He was just a boy, a lot of soldiers were. Constable Collins reminds me of him. His name was Fred. I think about him from time to time, even after all these years. There are war memories, mostly the ones about the men I met in the trenches, that I finally buried somewhere in the back of my mind, some place that I don't visit as often as I used to. But Fred I cannot bury that easily. His facial features have become blurry with time, but I clearly remember his personality, his kind nature, his good manners. Perhaps I find myself thinking about him on occasion because his deepest fear was something I never quite understood back then, but I do understand it now. In fact, it's a fear I now experience myself.
> 
>  
> 
> Fred was scared he'd forget the voices of the people he loved most: his mother’s, his little sister’s, his fiance’s. He had got engaged before leaving for France. The girl had promised to wait for him. He talked about her, and wrote her letters, and kept a picture she had given him between the pages of a Jane Austen novel. I can't remember the girl's name, but I do remember how Fred's eyes lit up every time he mentioned her. I don't think I ever had that with my former wife, the kind of adoration that makes you weak in the knees and bends you over at its mercy. I thought Fred was too young, too full of hope and illusion, and that like the rest of us he desperately needed a silver lining, so he clinged to his love for that girl and let his fear of not hearing her voice ever again (and eventually forgetting it) be his motivation to fight and survive. But I never considered that _that_ fear could be real for itself. There were worse, more dangerous things to be scared of in the war, and facing them and admitting they made you afraid was harder for some than it was for others. Fred was young, and he had dreams, and he would have never imagined that anything could step on them until the war happened and he found himself there. We all supposed that his irrational fear of forgetting his fiance's voice was like a coping mechanism for him: it probably was easier to trick yourself into believing nothing would ever be as terrible as forgetting the voice of someone you loved. He was channeling all his other fears, the real ones, into that. Or so I thought at the time.
> 
>  
> 
> I know better now. Fred's fear wasn't a way to trick himself into believing there was nothing as terrifying out there as forgetting his beloved girl's voice, and that he would be fine no matter what happened as long as _that_ didn't happen. That fear was real for him because he was in love. He craved her- her eyes, her voice, her lips, her smell- and he couldn't have her, he didn't know when he would see her again (or _if_ he'd see her again at all), and whatever little memories of her he had helped him against the unbearable pain that being without her caused him. It was what nourished his heart and gave him hope. I couldn't understand this until many years later when I found myself suffering from the same form of fear. It was after I fell in love with you.
> 
>  
> 
> You've changed my views on everything, Phryne. You make me see things under a different light- _yours_ . The world- _my world_ \- redefines itself constantly under the light that you shine on it. Loving you has simplified many riddles, but it has made others even harder to solve. I’m scared of forgetting the sound of your voice like that kid in the trenches was once. I know it’s irrational, but I just can’t help myself. I crave your voice as much as I crave your kisses and your skin, and in this craving I get lost and like a child I’m scared. Scared because I don’t know exactly when I’ll see you again. Scared because human memory is something so fragile, so easy to tamper with. Scared because my name has never sounded so beautiful as when you say it, and if I don’t get to hear it again soon then I’m afraid I’ll lose myself to madness. The meanings of life, and  love, and fear, and friendship, they no longer are what they once were for me. You turned my head upside-down, darling.
> 
>  
> 
> I first felt like this during the time we spent apart after the Gerty Haynes case. I acted like a coward and walked away from you. I thought distance would be good, that it’d help me forget. The problem was I didn’t want to forget you. I didn’t want to risk my heart, but I couldn’t push you to the back of my mind either. I couldn’t pretend I’d never met you, or that I hadn’t fallen in love with you. I went to your house that night to tell you I was giving you up, and then I found myself unwilling to let the memory of you go. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t forget you. I didn’t want to, and it scared me that if I never saw you again then one day I would eventually start to forget. And then I remembered Fred and what I had mistaken for an irrational fear. I was scared I’d forget your face, and your laughter, and your long eyelashes, and the color of your skin, and the red of your lips, and the sound of your voice.
> 
>  
> 
> Once that fear settled in, it became constant. Even after we started working together again (it is, after all, what we do best) the fear wouldn’t disappear. I believe it will be with me forever. I believe this is a suffering all men in love must endure. When I learned you were flying your father to England, that fear intensified. I don’t want to be without you. I remember how life was before I met you, and I don’t want to go back to that. And what if you stayed in England for several months, maybe even several years? What if I started to forget?
> 
>  
> 
> The night of Dot and Hugh’s wedding, when we looked up at the sky and we saw that shooting star, I made a wish. I wish that you always find happiness. Everywhere. Anywhere. I want you to be happy, Phryne. Loving you has also redefined the meaning of happiness for me: I am happy if you are. I would never want anything else than that. I lay awake in the darkness thinking about you afterwards, thinking about the implications of the wish I made upon that star. I couldn’t sleep. Fear was consuming me. You hadn’t even left Australia and I was already missing you. I remembered Fred, I remembered how he talked about his fiance and how he prayed every night that he’d dream of the time they had shared before the war so he would not forget how her voice sounded, how her eyes sparkled, how her laughter made him feel full of life.
> 
>  
> 
> And then I understood _why_ the fear was so irrational: you can’t forget someone you’ve loved so deeply, someone that’s touched your heart and soul and changed your life for the better. My fear of forgetting you, Phryne, your taste and your lips and your nose and your smile and your voice, is irrational because you are unforgettable. Even if time passes and I never see you again (my heart aches at the thought), even if in twenty years I don’t remember the exact color of your hair black as raven feathers, or the melody of your laughter, or the smell of your French perfume, I will always remember your warmth, your wit, your thirst for justice, your sense of humor. And even if some day we part and many years later I can’t recall the sound of your voice (I hope, my love, that such thing never happens) I will always recall the sound of your happiness and everything that makes you who you are. Everything that makes you whom I love.
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t know if I’ll ever show you these letters. They are just random lines about my feelings. They are just random thoughts. I don’t know if it makes sense at all. I just know they make sense to me. The kind of wonderful sense one discovers when one falls in love. Maybe nobody else would understand these paragraphs, just like all those years ago I didn’t understand Fred’s fear. I think that girl made him see the world through different perspectives. It all made sense to him in ways I couldn’t know because I hadn’t met you yet. I hadn’t fallen for you yet. Perhaps one day I will give you all these letters. Perhaps you’ll read them, perhaps you won’t. There’s a chance you’ll understand. There is also a chance that you will not understand, and that doesn’t scare me. I am fine with all the possibilities- and that is also something I learned from loving you, Phryne. You’ve made me more afraid, you’ve made me less afraid. Loving you is the strangest thing that has ever happened to me. It also is the most wonderful.
> 
>  
> 
> I’ll go to sleep now, love. I need to dream of you: your red lips, your smile, your laughter, your warmth, your eyes, your voice. I’ll dream of London and the days that are yet to come. I’ll dream of holding you in the night and waking up next to you in the mornings, for I crave the simplicity of laying by your side as much as I crave making love to you.
> 
>  
> 
> I love you all, Phryne. And no matter what happens with us, no matter where life takes us, I know that I will always remember the sound of your beautiful, generous heart.

  
  


 

 

_Love is old, love is new_

_Love is all, love is you_

 

 _Because_ \- The Beatles


	6. Chapter 6

“A psychic reading is not just about career opportunities, good fortune or meeting tall, dark strangers. It is a sacred portal to manifesting your true destiny.”

Anthon St. Maarten

 

 

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

Pablo Neruda

 

 

“I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”

Roy Croft

 

 

_But of all these friends and lovers_

_There is no one compares with you_

_And these memories lose their meaning_

_When I think of love as something new_

 

 _In my life_ \- The Beatles

 

 

 

 

 

> With each passing day, with each tick of the clock, I miss you more and more, my dear. I long to have you physically with me, I truly do, but it’s not only the shape of your blood red lips, the flutter of your long eyelashes, and the intoxicating smell of your French perfume that I miss- I need to talk to you, I need the sound and warmth of your voice, the witty and reassurance of your words. Our playful banter, the glasses of whisky we share in your parlour and our fingers brushing lightly when you hand one to me, the flashing smiles, the gentle touches that we want to pass as casual but know very well that aren't. I miss the subtleties in our conversation, the double meaning and the teasing, the metaphors and the feelings hidden between the lines, that have been there in the words we say out loud and the looks we give each other from the very beginning.
> 
> I miss all that, Phryne.
> 
> I miss all of you.
> 
> If our farewell in the airfield had never happened (no romantic overtures and no dares to follow you to another hemisphere) and I was still in Australia, my lips untouched by yours and the consequences of my cowardice slowly eating at my heart, I would still miss you desperately. I would still write these letters to you, from my office after finishing a case or late at night because thoughts of you push sleep away. Because I have gotten used to talking to you, Phryne. Because you are my best friend, and I have come to depend on your presence in my life to sooth me and bring me the calm and the happiness that for so long have eluded me. I would go crazy otherwise, dear, if I didn't have you to share my thoughts with. I would still need to talk to you somehow, even if it only was an imaginary you, a version of you built up in my head with the memories of everything we’ve gone through and everything you’ve become to me. Even if our conversations only were me and a piece of paper, and a pen and the dark ink, and the solitude of my heart, my body and soul achy from needing you, I would still write these letters, love, for I doubt I will ever learn how to live without you in my life after having experienced what it is like to have you be my best friend, the person I trust the most. The person that matters the most. The one that has changed me, the one that has taken my heart in her hands and revived it.
> 
> Do you remember, dearest, the night that you read my hand? The pressure of your beautiful fingers, the touch of your skin against mine, it all felt exquisite to me. You make me come alive under your touch. You breathe life into me with your words. You are full of life and you fill me with it. You always have. It is this rare, marvellous gift only you seem to have: the gift to make me feel human and whole again. The gift to heal wounds from my past that I thought would be a part of me forever, that I thought were forever etched on my skin, forever a part of me.
> 
> And that night was no different. You held my hand in yours, you caressed the back and the palm while you looked into my eyes, and I swear, Phryne, that in that moment I forgot every bad thing that has ever happened to me. I forgot that I have hurt everywhere for a long time as a consequence of suppressed emotions, the horrors of the war, a broken marriage, and a career as a police officer that more often than not makes me face the worst things people are capable of doing to others and to themselves. I forgot that I have lived for a long time with a heartache, I forgot how to breathe, and how to think, and the room around us disappeared. And my senses were hungry for you, all of you, and nothing else seemed to be of importance. The rest of the world stopped existing, and only you mattered during the few seconds that your hand held mine. Only you, my darling, that have become my whole world, only you and I existed then and there.
> 
> Your soft voice spoke of a man that you see clearly, a man that you seem to know of more than anyone else. You know him better that he knows himself, I’d dare say. And so you told me about this man that is careful and professes to be cynical in the face of mysteries he can’t explain. You told me about him and how he claims to have no passions in spite of a heart that runs as deep as the Pacific Ocean.
> 
> How to put down in words what you made me feel that night, darling mine. How to accurately express the tenderness with which your phrases tore me apart, inside out, if I still don’t fully it understand it myself! You said that and I crumbled, for you were describing a man that I never believed I could be, and yet you somehow saw him in me and were telling me about him, making sure I knew he was real and visible to you. You, my Phryne, the woman that is exception to all of my rules, the one that can see through me, the one that peers into my soul and explains to me things that are hidden there, buried there, and that I have forgotten about. How to write in a simple letter, nothing more than ink and paper, what you moved in my soul when I heard you talk about a man that not only did you believe I could be, but that to you I already was.
> 
> To you, dear, I already meant more than I have ever meant to myself. To me, my dear, you have always had the ability to surprise me and render me speechless (but it would be a safe bet to say you do know that- you always have known the effect you have on me.) And speechless I was after I heard those words cascading off your beautiful mouth, the mouth I could draw the shape of blindfolded, for I have long ago committed every of its details to memory. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know if I was physically or emotionally capable of saying a thing, and at the same time I felt like I could say almost _anything_ \- a thousand words were pulsating from my head and to the tip of my tongue, begging to be freed, begging to be spoken, desperate to reach your ears.
> 
> What a contradiction you have made of me, Phryne: rendered speechless and overcome by things to say, all at the same time. But then again, you have always had the ability of making me feel everything at once, all of the feelings that are known to the human heart, body and mind, all of them at the same time, unfiltered and wild.
> 
> I said none of them. I was silent for a second, my heart furiously. painfully beating against my ribs, making a scandal in my chest that I was scared you could actually hear. Could you, dear? Could you hear the scandal in my heart? Perhaps it was that- the fear that you would hear it, that you would make out the sounds of my heart- what made me speak the first coherent, emotionally detached words that my brain and tongue mustered the physical, cognitive skill to get out of my mouth: I told you that all I saw in my hand was another martini. And you smiled and said nothing at all, and I still ask myself if you actually believed me or if you understood you had made me face tangled thoughts and dark demons I was not yet ready to battle, emotions I was not prepared to admit and handle, and so you let it slipped and did not call me out for telling lies and finding excuses for changing the subject, and you put another martini in my hand and allowed me to keep on enjoying your presence, your company, your conversation and your warmth.
> 
> Do you know what I really saw in my hand that night, Phryne? I think I am ready to tell you know, love, what I saw in the lines of my palm, what stunned me and knocked the air out my lungs and precipitated me to say something so meaningless and emotionless, almost insensitive, for I now understand that you had stripped bare your emotions when you talked about the man you saw in me, and all you got in response was a stupid request for another drink because I was so scared and so scarred- I am so scared and so scarred, dear, I’m afraid I still am- that I couldn’t open up to you in the same way that you were opening up to me. I couldn’t tell you the truth, so I lied. I couldn’t strip my heart bare, so I quieted it down and lied. And for that I am so sorry, Phryne.
> 
> But now I want you to know. Or at least I want to put it down in words, ink and paper my allies in trying to begin to being honest with myself and with you about the way you make me feel and the things you awake in me that I never thought myself capable of, not since I returned from the trenches broken and changed. And yet here I am, going after you, crossing an ocean to go find you in a foreign land, spilling the contents of my soul (and I still wonder from time to time if I will ever give these letters to you or if I will forever keep them hidden.) You changed me, dear. You heal me. Present tense. You are constantly healing me, Phryne.
> 
> And I saw that in the lines of my palm. I saw that I was lost in you, and that I would also be lost without you, and that I stood no chance of overcoming the effects you’ve had on me. I saw that you will always have them, and that I will always be subjected to them. I saw that if given the chance I would follow you to the end of the world. I saw that you will always have me, and that I will always be waiting to see if it could be possible to ever have you. I saw that I wouldn’t mind the waiting as long as I still could have you as a friend, as partner, as the person that matters the most to me, the person that I trust the most. My partner. The one that heals me. The one that knows me better than anyone else, even better than I know myself, and is not afraid to tell me what she sees in me- things I hadn’t even been able to see in me myself until you pointed them out.
> 
> I saw that I will always desperately want to try to be the man you see in me. The man you think I am. The man that has a heart that runs as deep as the Pacific Ocean, the one that although he claims himself to be cynical and practical is burning with passion, even if he sometimes doesn’t acknowledge it, even if he is so scared and so scarred that he has the tendency to run away from it scare because that is what he has learned during his time in the war: fright or flight, but find a way to survive.
> 
> And I saw, dear, that you are and always will be my biggest passion, the one that burns me and makes me come alive, the one that touches me everywhere: my heart, my mind, my body, my soul. Everywhere. I am passionate about you in a way that I don’t think I could ever be capable of being passionate about anything else. You are my biggest, deepest, most dangerous passion, dear. And I love you more than words would ever tell, more than I could ever put down in paper, more than I could ever express or explain.
> 
> I saw all that and said nothing.
> 
> But I am saying it now, in the hopes that it will count, in the hopes that it will help me face it and embrace it and be ready to prove it to you, show it to you, when I get to England and see you once more. For perhaps you will never read these letters, perhaps these words in smudged ink that I am writing in a badly lit cabin  will never be read by you, but the sentiments in them I want you to know through my actions, through everything I will say and do once we are reunited.
> 
> I want you to never doubt that I know what I am passionate about and that I will never again be cynical or blind about it.
> 
> I am passionate about you.
> 
> I love you, Phryne mine, with a passion that I never thought possible feeling, a passion that I didn’t know I was capable of, until you told me about what you saw in the man you’ve always believed exists in me.
> 
> I hope I never prove you wrong.
> 
> That’s what’s written in the lines of my palm: that I am passionate about you.

 

 

 

 

_Whenever I'm alone with you_

_You make me feel like I am home again._

_Whenever I'm alone with you_

_You make me feel like I am whole again._

 

 _Lovesong_ \- The Cure


	7. Chapter 7

**mellifluous**

(adj.) A sound that is sweet and smooth, pleasing to hear.

  
  


“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”

Alan W. Watts

  
  


“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”

Jalaluddin Rumi

  
  


_Long live the echoes of my despair_

_Dissolving into nothing_

_I swear they'll never take me alive_

_They'll never pull my strings again_

 

_Heavy Boots_ \- Motion City Soundtrack

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

> My name sounds different when it’s on your lips.
> 
>  
> 
> I wish I could kiss you everytime you say it, so I could know what it tastes like in your mouth. Get drunk with it. Intoxicated. Blissfully drugged by the taste the letters of my name leave in your mouth when they are there.
> 
>  
> 
> It sounds new, and it sounds teasing. It’s got feel and rhythm. It sounds mysterious and erotic. It sounds like everything I’ve always wanted to know but never dared asking, and at the same time it sounds like anything I’ve ever thought I’d need or want.
> 
>  
> 
> You make my name yours every time you say it. You make _me_ yours every time you say it. And it makes me feel that there's no other thing I would rather be than just yours.
> 
> You say my name and I have no doubt in my mind, in my soul, in my heart that every thing that's ever happened to me, all my troubles and tribulations, my lost hopes and unmet expectations, the heartache and the pain, all of those things happened to me with the sole purpose of leading me to you in the end.
> 
>  
> 
> It's you I belong to, Phryne, love. I feel it in my bones, in my nerve endings, in every fiber and tendon and muscle, and in my heartstrings too. You say my name and I know I’m home. And even though I couldn’t understand that right away, now I know it’s been happening since the beginning, since the first time my name was on your lips: all those sensations I couldn’t describe, the shivers down my spine, the earth opening at my feet, the adrenaline washing over me- the symptoms of you. The attack to my senses that all of them are, it began when you walked into my life and your voice gave my name new meaning.
> 
>  
> 
> For the longest time I had trouble accepting the man I became once the war ended. I had left my home one way, and by the time I returned I was just the pieces of the man that had worn that soldier uniform for the first time before heading to the battlefield. I had to do what I could with whatever was left of me. I had to rebuild myself whatever way I could, with whatever tools I could find. It's hard, knowing that since you will never be the same then subsequently nothing else will be the same. You can't unsee the war. You can't go back to the day before your ship left. You can't pretend you weren't there. It did happen. You were part of that. Yes, it happened to you. Yes, you were among those that came back when so many others didn't. Yes, you will never forget. Yes, the scars are forever and they won't stand being ignored, they would make themselves present when you least expect them to, and they'll make you feel like war has started all over again and you're being called to the front line where you'll most likely perish. No, you can't change that it happened like this. No one can. This is what remains of you, these are the pieces that made it back home. Do what you will with them.
> 
>  
> 
> I can talk about this now, perhaps because I have learned to handle it, but most likely because it's you I imagine I am talking to. It wouldn't be this easy, this natural, to write about it to anyone else (and I would never dream of telling these things to anyone else). I can talk about this now, but at the beginning I couldn't. I just couldn't. I didn't have the strength (physical or emotional), I didn't know where to begin. I didn't want to. I didn't know how. I didn't feel understood. I wished to avoid being a burden. I didn't think they would listen. Every day I found a new excuse, a different reason, not to talk about it. Maybe one of the basic reasons behind this is that I didn't have someone like you, someone that could understand. Someone willing to listen.
> 
>  
> 
> Rosie did her best. I don't blame her. We were young. She wasn't anymore ready for what went down than I was. But the truth is that I never felt at home again after the war was over. My body was in Melbourne, but my mind was still in the trenches. The war was over on paper, but I was still in the trenches. I didn't make it back home the day the ship arrived at the dock, now I realize that. I made it back home the day I met you.
> 
>  
> 
> The thing is, Phryne dear, that you never got a chance to meet the man I was before all that. You didn't get a chance to meet the man that went to the war. You met the soldier that came back. The soldier that survived. You made the man that fought a long battle, longer than the duration of the conflict, with his demons and fears for enemies. You met the man that lives with the flashbacks, and the nightmares, and the triggers. You met the man that can't unsee death, the man that can't turn back in time.
> 
>  
> 
> The man you met- and for a long time I couldn't see this any other way- was someone that constantly wondered what could have happened if war hadn't changed his life. I felt I was an unfinished draft, that my life had been interrupted all of a sudden and that I had been given the life of another man to continue it mid sentence. You didn't see me as such. You saw a man that had his temper, and his flaws, a man that had fought in the war and made it back. A man with passions. You saw my heart. You said my name like it meant something, like it had a story on its own that you were interested in reading. And by doing so you made me yours, and you made me feel home.
> 
>  
> 
> This journey to you is helping me analyse and realize a lot of things I was too scared to pay attention to before. Now I have a lot of time on my hands to think about them, and I can't seem to stop. I can't stop noticing them, writing to you about them. I can't believe I spent so much time trying not to think of the effect you've had on me, for now that I allow myself that pleasure I discover just how beautiful it is knowing exactly what effect the person you love the most can have.
> 
>  
> 
> Every day I lived before we found each other, everything that happened to me, good and bad, all of that shaped me. All the changes, the things that I couldn't undo, the things that I couldn't unsee, all of that shaped the man you met. I do not regret them. I see now that they were necessary, perhaps even written in the stars if you let me be poetic. They were necessary because they were the prologue to our story. They were the journey to you. The journey home.
> 
>  
> 
> It all began when you said my name and made me yours, darling mine. What happened before was just the journey home.

  
  


 

 

_Say my name_

_And every color illuminates_

_We are shining_

_And we will never be afraid again_

 

_Spectrum (Say My Name)_ \- Florence And The Machine


	8. Chapter 8

“The Japanese have a philosophy called Kintsugi. They take the pieces of something that’s fallen apart, and they put it back together with gold. Imperfection can be beautiful.”

_The Man in the High Castle_

 

 

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Maya Angelou.

 

 

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

Anaïs Nin

 

 

_It seemed like a dream_

_A beautiful scream_

_That echoed forever_

_And made us not afraid to feel a thing_

 

_It had to be you -_ Motion City Soundtrack

  
  


 

 

 

> I saw a young man on the dining deck today. He had a notebook and a pen, and he was writing. He reminded me of myself when I was around his age. I would always keep a little notebook and a pen in my pocket in case an idea presented itself- when I was young I found inspiration in the simplest, littlest things.
> 
>  
> 
> Now, I still keep a notebook and a pen in my pocket, but I do it so I can take notes about the cases I work. You have noticed it, I am sure. It helps me think, process, plan. It's nothing like the writing I did when I was young, before the war. In most of the sheets of paper I scribble lists of questions I want the answers to for I think once they are solved individually they would fit together like the pieces of a puzzle and allow me to solve the case.
> 
>  
> 
> I have with me stationery that I bought before I embarked on the ship. It was a last minute decision, and as I was handing the vendor the pound notes in exchange for the paper, the pens and the envelopes, I asked myself what I would do with them whilst at sea, with no official police matters to occupy my head or my time for the first time in over twenty years. And, I hadn’t written again ever since after the war- why would I start writing again? But I bought it anyway, perhaps because deep down in my heart I knew that I’d be needing it. Perhaps, deep down in my heart I knew I would be writing these letters to you, stripping my soul bare to you, my love.
> 
> I observed this man for a while today as I ate my meal (salt pork and green beans- nothing like Mr. Butler’s fine cooking, but it’ll have to do until we hit dry land). I saw in him- in his features, his focused expression as he looked down at the sheet of paper stained with fresh black ink due to how fast and feverishly he was scribbling- a lot of the things I know I once possessed before circumstances- call it karma, call it fate, or simply call it the twisted, wicked, greedy world we live in and the minds of those who rule it- took that all away from me and replaced it with doubts, and fear, and hesitations, and memories of the worst things a human being can witness (as they were all witnessed in the trenches, I assure you. But, I don’t need to assure you, love, now that I think about it, because you’ve been there, and you’ve seen it and tasted it and experienced it. So you know. Oh, Phryne, you know.)
> 
>  
> 
> I wondered if that was what I looked like to others that happened, by chance, to see me, _observe me_ , like I was observing the man on the dining deck today. How many times had I sat on a park bench at midday, the sunlight kissing the skin of my neck (much softer back then than it is now), a pen swaying between my fingers and my brows frowning in deep concentration, a story brewing? How many people had walked by me? And how many of them did notice me? Did they just notice a young man taking a break from his new, exciting job, enjoying the fresh air in a park near his workplace during his lunch hour, writing a sentence or two here and there in a brown leather notebook? Or did they see what I saw on this young man’s face? The passion, the inspiration, the sparkle in his eyes. The very essence of life burning in them.
> 
>  
> 
> I leaned back in my seat and I studied him for a long time, unnoticed by him. He was too absorbed in his task to realize he had caught my attention. I wondered if he was writing a letter home, or if instead it was an original work of fiction he was pouring his heart into (for one could clearly see that he was pouring his heart into what he was writing.) And if it was a letter, who was it for? His mother? A sibling? A sweetheart? And if it wasn’t, and it was a novel, or a play, or a piece of poetry, what was it about? Where was his inspiration coming from? Will it ever be published? Will it ever be read by eyes other than his? Will it touch souls, change lives, inspire hearts, if only ever just the one? Will it be forgotten in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, to be found many years from now by a grandchild when they’re sifting through his things after he’s long gone?
> 
>  
> 
> I wondered all those things, Phryne, and in letting my mind wander and wonder about this young man’s future and the many places a single piece of written paper could lead him (what if it’s a letter for the girl he loves and he’s telling her how he wants to marry her when he comes back home from wherever he is going? Or what if the girl he loves is waiting for him wherever he is going and he’s writing her letters to give them to her when he finally sees her, so she can read about the journey, just like I’m writing these love letters to you?) I realized something: my faith in the future, my hope that there are brighter times ahead of us all- me, you, strangers and everyone I happen to notice in the dining deck while I’m eating salt pork with some green beans, - has been restored.
> 
>  
> 
> It had been a long time since the last time I’d looked at someone and asked myself what life had in store for them, what wonderful things it may hold for them. I remember it was something I used to do back then, when I was a young man that shared many resemblances with the one I saw today: I would observe people, spot little details about them, try to figure out what they were passionate about and where that passion may take them if they pursued it. I had forgotten I had once done that, but now these memories from before the war that I had suppressed and hidden deep inside me had resurfaced, and thanks to them I had come once again in contact with this part of me that the war shattered but didn’t erase. It is still within me.
> 
>  
> 
> I never stopped observing people, of course, but I only kept on observing them for reasons related to my job as an officer of the law. It’s a necessity, a very essential skill to have if you want to succeed in this line of work, but most of the time the things you observe aren’t satisfying outside of the fact that they allow you to break down cases and catch criminals. I am not saying that it isn’t satisfying. Perhaps I should cross out this, or perhaps I shouldn’t. Perhaps I should let it there, the shiny black ink drying where the pen placed it. Because if I am pretending these letters are the things I’d talk to you about if you were physically here with me then the words should not be changed, for if we were having this conversation face to face (and I so wish, my love, that soon will come the day that I’ll speak to you instead of writing) I would have to rephrase my thoughts and ideas instead of just crossing out and write them again as if the previous ones had never existed.
> 
>  
> 
> The passion and interest I have for my job have driven me for a long time. They have been everything I’ve held onto for a long time. I gave my all to it. I know what I do brings peace and justice to the victims of hideous crimes: rape, abuse, murder, theft, fraud- you’ve seen it all, too. You know how this is. You know why I do this. There’s the thrill, the adventure, the puzzles to solve, the riddles, but there’s also the satisfaction of knowing you’re putting away dangerous, devious people and protecting others they would definitely hurt if they weren’t imprisoned. I know you do this, and you do it so well, because you want to restore justice and make our society a better one, too. It’s not about the murder mysteries. It’s not about finding clues and following leads. At least it’s not all about that.
> 
>  
> 
> We need to observe in order to be able to do our jobs. I like to think I am a good detective partly because I can read people. Because I know what to observe, how to observe it, what to look for. It is, like I mentioned, a necessary skill. But I had long ago stopped observing the good in people. I know I am surrounded by good people: my constables, you, the staff at your houses, your Aunt Prudence (although I am not sure she thinks of me very highly, if I’m to be honest), even those two cabbies you’ve befriended. But what about those I walk past daily? Women, and children, and other former soldiers, and old people, and other men. I stopped observing them. I stopped looking at people in random moments, in random places and wondering what their stories might be, where they’re going, where those stories are taking them. They all have a future- no, _we all_ have a future. I have a future, too. I have a story- tainted as it may be by the war, and shell-shock, and my separation from my wife that later ended in a divorce. I have a story and its consequences are constantly taking me somewhere new.
> 
>  
> 
> To begin with, they’ve taken me to you.
> 
>  
> 
> I had forgotten that. I had forgotten to look at people. I had forgotten to believe in the future. Going to bed every night knowing that you will have to get up the following morning at the same hour and follow the same routine as you did the previous day- that isn’t having faith in the future. That isn’t hope. I had forgotten what hope and faith felt like until I experienced them again thanks to you, and each and every day I find new little things, new little details, that prove to me how infinite, how enormous is the effect that your presence in my life has had on me.
> 
>  
> 
> Just like today, when I saw a young man in the dining deck writing feverishly and was reminded of a version of myself that never imagined his dreams would be shattered by a war. But that same version of myself didn’t imagine that he’d end up falling in love madly with the most beautiful, good hearted woman in this whole world, either. There was so much I didn’t know when I was as young as this man is, and I spent my lunch hour sitting on park benches writing (mostly for myself; I never showed anyone a single sentence). I didn’t know the bad things that would happen, but now I can see that I didn’t know about the good ones, either.
> 
>  
> 
> You’re among the good ones, Phryne. The first good thing that happened to me after I came back with my heart in pieces and my peace of mind stolen, my temper forever changed, my views and opinions on life completely altered. My soul tainted by death and smoke and war.
> 
>  
> 
> You were the first good thing that happened to me, and the consequences of loving you so madly, so deeply, and now so freely at least in my letters, are starting to show. I am seeing them. I am feeling them.
> 
>  
> 
> All because of you.
> 
>  
> 
> Of course it had to be you.

 

   

  
  


_So if you wake up with the sunrise,_

_And all your dreams are still new,_

_And happiness is what you need so bad,_

_The answer lies with you_

  
_What it is and what should never be -_ Led Zeppelin


	9. Chapter 9

“My love for you tonight is so deep and tender that it seems to be outside myself as well.”

Katherine Mansfield

  


“I hurt with the insatiate longing, until I feel that there will never be any relief until I take a long, deep, wild draught on your lips.”

Warren Harding

  


“My love has made me selfish, I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every time but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorbed me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving - I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of seeing you soon.”

John Keats

  


_You don't realize how much I need you,_

_Love you all the time_

_And never leave you._

_Please come on back to me._

_I'm lonely as can be._

_I need you._

 

_I need you_ \- The Beatles

  
  
  


 

> My love,
> 
> As I write these lines to you without knowing if I’d ever muster the courage to give them to you to read, it is very late at night and it is raining heavily. I was awakened by the persistent thunder, its sounds startling and deafening like a hungry lion’s roar. I am trained to expect loud sounds under certain circumstances in my line of work, and for those I am prepared, but they often shock and frighten me if they catch me with my guard off. They remind me too much for the war. The trenches. They remind me too much of a time where a startling, deafening sound could be the last thing you ever heard.
> 
> Fully awake, I tossed and turned for a while. I tried to fall back asleep, but I couldn’t. It’s something that has happened to me quite often, the sleepless, restless nights. I don’t have to wonder if you’ve ever had one of them, Phryne, because I know you, and I know what you’ve been through since you were a child, and I can imagine that you, like me, have had too many of these nights to count. Perhaps, you still have them. Something tells me you still have them. I think you may still have sleepless nights that have nothing to do with the pleasures and luxuries you enjoy so much.  
> 
> War flashbacks- or any kind of flashbacks one may have that take you right back to a traumatic experience- are really worse at night. They catch you with your guard off, your arms fallen. They catch you when you’re unable to defend yourself. They corner you into the darkness of your room (or ship cabin, as it is my case tonight and will be for several nights to come), and they don’t let you escape. They force on you unpleasant memories, and they push you to battle your most torturous, saddest thoughts on your own, with no other weapon than your bare hands. Hands that are already too tired from digging and scraping and trying to rebuild from scratch something with whatever’s been left after hardship and tragedy struck you like lightning. Hands that are already too tired of scrubbing off the blood of others, for they belong to a body whose eyes have seen death claim lives, but they have not been able to help them, to save them. Hands that have been marked by those tragic experiences, and now are feeling stained and impotent and useless. How I wish I had someone whose hand I could hold right now.
> 
> I tossed and turned in bed whilst trying to fight the war flashbacks on my own, like I have so many times before. And on all of those occasions, I always wish I had someone there with me. Someone to help me. Someone to fight with, and to fight for. A partner. Someone who’d seen, and felt, and experienced similar things. Not only the war in all its bloody cruelty, horror, misery and hatred, but that dark human nature that is also found in the everyday life, so difficult to understand to those that don’t cohabit with murder, violence and crime. But this night was somehow different, because for the first time ever since I returned from the trenches, ever since I became a police officer, this time I know that _I have you_ . I am not alone. _I have you._ You understand me. You have your own battles to fight, and some of them are similar to mine. Some of them are almost the same. And we can fight together, and for each other.    
> 
> When the thunder woke me tonight, oh how I wished I had you by my side. How I wished I had your hand to hold, the sweet, rhythmic beat of your heart to lull me back to sleep. How I wished I could go back to sleep in your arms, my head on your chest, your heartbeat my lullaby. How I needed you, love. How I _need_ you, present tense. I always need you. These letters are, for me, a coping mechanism of some sort, I think. I miss you. I need you. Everything about you, ever since you flew away that glorious, sunny morning, everything about you I’ve needed and missed desperately. Your teasing smile, your sparkly eyes, the sound of your voice,your gorgeous red lips. These things I write, these words from the very bottom of my heart- it’s everything I’d say to you if you were here with me. You are my best friend, my partner, the woman I am profoundly in love with. There is nothing I wouldn’t tell you at this point, I believe. Or at least there’s nothing I wouldn’t _want_ to tell you. I miss you terribly, I miss talking to you. Writing these letters is playing pretend: why would I say to you if you were here and I had no other weapons than my words, no Shakespeare quotes to borrow? What would I say to you if I had no fears?
> 
> And so I got out of bed, I found a sheet of paper and my pencil case, and I’ve begun writing you these letters. For if I don’t have you here with me tonight physically, Phryne dear, know that I always have you in my heart and on my mind. You’re always consuming my every thought, my love. And right now I need to talk to you, even if the you I talk with only exists in my memories of your dear perfection. Even if your ear is just my pen and paper, and my loneliness, and nothing else, at this moment.   
> 
> In the middle of the wild sea, in the midst of a storm, writing to you makes me feel less alone. And for a matter of minutes I can play pretend, I can imagine that you’re here with me and not thousands of miles away. I can imagine that I have you, flesh and bones and exquisite beauty. It helps me calm down, put things into perspective, see them more clearly. And so as I write to you I hold onto the hope that the storm is not something to be afraid of but merely another part of the journey that will take me to you. And so I let the storm push me right into your awaiting open arms.
> 
> I am probably not making much sense, Phryne mine. I am tired, and overflowing with emotions. I am overflowing with the need of you, so strong that if I close my eyes and breathe in I can almost smell your French perfume. I can almost feel the warmth of your skin under my fingertips. I can almost taste our farewell kiss again on my hungry tongue and lips. I never thought it would be possible to have all the feelings known to mankind, all of them at the same time. But you’ve taught me, shown me, that it is. It is possible. I know now because I have them all, I feel them all, and it’s all because of you. And tonight the sensations are even more profound, even more intoxicating. They’re deeper, tenderer than ever, and they seem to be outside of myself as well, for I can feel every ounce of the love, adoration and admiration that I have for you, every ounce of the desperation and the frustration and the longing, every ounce of raw need and withdrawal, with me right now.
> 
> How I wait for the day I can finally hold you in my arms and kiss you. How I long for the day I can talk to you again, your velvety voice caressing me all over my heart, my soul, every single fiber of my being. You make me feel alive, Phryne. Even in the middle of the night, assaulted by war flashbacks, the memory of you and what you’ve come to mean to me makes me feel human, real, alive. The war has left me scarred and scared, but your presence in my life has begun healing me, and the fact that I can heal proves that I’m still breathing, I’m still here, I’m still alive. Perhaps I am not whole, perhaps I’m too marked by what I’ve done, heard and seen, but I’m still here. And so are you, even if right at this moment your presence is only felt by my heart. Even if you’re thousand of miles away. I am here and so are you, and I hope I am also there with you, wherever it is that you are right now.
> 
> My eyes are feeling heavier and heavier now, love. The storm continues, but I believe I can go back to bed feeling lighter than I was when I got out of it, shaking from the flashbacks and wishing I had you here by my side. I am no longer shaking, though I still long for you. I’ll bid my time, I’ll be patient. We’ll be together soon, and it is the knowledge that our reunion is a certainty what makes me believe that if I were to step outside right now, I’d be able to walk on water if I happened to wish so. You make me feel that brave and invincible, Phryne. Your love does that to me. Isn’t it wonderful, what love can make of a man?  Some say it can make a fool out of you, but in my case it’s made me braver, wiser, better. You’ve made me a better man, Miss Fisher.
> 
> I will end this letter by penning down one more wish, and that is that wherever you are you are dreaming of me. Selfish, right? I know. But love can do that to you, too. I’ll cross it over and rephrase it, but I don’t want to censure myself when I’m talking to you. I want this to be as similar to a conversation as possible, and if we had been speaking and I had said exactly that, I wouldn’t have been able to cross it out or erase it. I wouldn’t want to lie to you, either, and the truth is that I wish that you dream of me as often as I dream of you. If this love has also made me selfish, so be it, for it’s a small price to pay in order to be all the other things I have become by loving you.
> 
> Forgive me for my selfishness, dear. I will make a different wish to end this letter with. I wish that tonight I dream of you, and not the war. I wish that I dream, for the millionth time, of your red lips, and your warm skin, and your French perfume. I wish that I dream of your sweetness and kindness. I wish that I dream of your velvety, soothing voice. I wish that I dream of the time that awaits us together, whether in London or wherever in this world you choose. Anywhere you go, I’ll follow. Even in the midst of a storm.

  
  


_How I wish, how I wish you were here._  
_We're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year,_  
_Running over the same old ground._  
_What have we found?_  
_The same old fears._  
_Wish you were here._

_Wish you were here -_ Pink Floyd


	10. Chapter 10

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

Jacques Yves Cousteau

  
  
  


“But let there be spaces in our togetherness and let the winds of the heaven dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

Khalil Gibran

  
  
  
  


“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which take at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

William Shakespeare

  
  
  
  


_ Honey you are the sea  _

_ Upon which I float _

_ And I came here to talk _

_ I think you should know _

_ That green eyes _

_ You’re the one that I wanted to find _

 

_ Green eyes -  _ Coldplay

  
  
  
  


> My dear Phryne,
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you are well, wherever it is in the world that you are right now. I hope your corner of the world has a little bit more sunlight than the one that momentarily I call mine. 
> 
>  
> 
> It is cold here today, and it’s raining, and my heart aches for the warmth it only feels when yours is near. The sounds of the sea make me nostalgic for the sound of your voice. How immense, how infinite you are, Phryne mine, that the sea and the moon remind me of you! Perhaps because their beauty, as yours, inspires poets and artists alike. Perhaps because they’re mysterious, hypnotic and enchanting- all qualities that you yourself possess. You compel me to write, Phryne, to pour my soul every time I put pen to paper. The words overwhelm me and then they flow more naturally than I ever believed possible. Who would have thought me a poet? I can assure you that the idea must have crossed very few minds, if none at all .But you have on me the effect of a muse, my darling. Some contemplate the sea and the moon for inspiration- I’d rather contemplate you. But I don’t have you here with me, and it’ll be long until I finally reunite with you. Or at least longer than what my starved heart is willing to wait tonight until its deepest desires come true. Oh, if I could, if given the chance, what wouldn’t I give for the chance to be with you tonight? It’s been too long since the last nightcap we shared, and I am hungry for your laughter, and your smile, and your witty remarks and sassy comments. I am hungry for our banter, and the unspoken communication that we seem to be able to have without the need to utter a single word. I am hungry for your expressive eyes that shine brighter than all the stars above us. I am hungry for you, my dear. I am always hungry for you. 
> 
>  
> 
> What do I do, my love, with this hunger that consumes me? How do I satisfy this overwhelming need I have for you, Phryne? For all of you. It used to be easier before, when we were just friends. Partners. When the invisible wall I had put up between us separated us and kept me safe from my fears and from myself, protected from the reality I did not want to face at the beginning, but that continued to grow stronger in spite of my unwillingness to not admit that I was falling madly in love with you. The hunger, the need- all of that was already there, dormant, unable to touch me for there was a wall between us, but there also was a wall between my mind and my heart. But you tore it all down, brick by brick. You cause my walls to begin to crumble, until I tumbled down myself.
> 
>  
> 
> Some days I do not know if I fell all by myself or if the force of nature that is you dragged me down. But even if I’ve fallen, it’s the highest I’ve ever felt. Isn’t it curious, how odd love is? You are miles away from me and yet somehow I find myself still falling for you: deep, deep. Deeper. And I don’t wish to get up, for what I feared the most at the beginning turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me:  _ you.  _
> 
>  
> 
> The intimidating bohemian lady with the jewels and wardrobe that were worth a small fortune, I must confess, I was afraid of her when we first met. You were kneeling down on the floor by a corpse, but by the end of the the week it was me who was the one trying to stand still, praying that my knees wouldn’t buckle. Now I am so thankful that I’ve fallen, my love. id this happen by accident? By coincidence? Was it fate’s hand? Did it surprise you as much as it surprised me? Did it find you when you least expected it, like you found me? Or was this your plan all along, my love, to have me succumb to your exquisite charms? To have me go hungry for you, aching desperately for release, writing about how much I miss you and how the sea and the moon remind me of you?
> 
>  
> 
> The moon is hidden by the heavy, grey clouds that have gathered in the sky, but I know that it is there nonetheless. Even if I cannot see it. Just like I know that you are out there, somewhere, in a world full of adventures. But for some inexplicable chance, for some miraculous struck of luck, you are out there waiting for me. You are out there waiting for me to go after you, like you asked. I cannot see you, moon of my life, but I can feel you. I feel your vibrant pulse in my blood, the brush of your lips on mine. I have your taste in my mouth and it makes me drunk. I smell the very scent of you, it fills me up, it fuels me up, and it makes me go mad with abstinence and desire. You are not here in the flesh, my darling, but you are out there, I know. And for now, that will have to make do. And for now, it will have to be enough.
> 
>  
> 
> I’ll be thinking of you, dreaming of you, falling for you, until we finally reunite and I can satisfy this hunger that burns me up alive. Until then, Phryne, I’ll let the memories of our farewell and the promise hidden in your invitation (dare I take it as a promise? Oh, my Phryne, I so want it to have been a promise!) wash over me like the waves upon the shore. I’ll let it soothe me and satisfy me until your own hands, mouth, body and voice take their place. Until we are together to make new memories in which I’d want to drawn. Just like right now I want to be drawn into the memories that we’ve made so far. 
> 
>  
> 
> I adore you, my moon, my darling, my everything. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ And I could write a song _

_ A hundred miles long _

_ Well, that's where I belong _

_ And you belong with me _

 

_ Swallowed in the sea -  _ Coldplay 


	11. Chapter 11

“Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

  
  
  
  


“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

Scott Fitzgerald

  
  
  
  


“Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.”

Jorge Luis Borges

  
  
  


_ All the beauty that's been lost before  _

_ Wants to find us again.  _ __   
  


_ Ordinary Love _ \-  U2

  
  
  
  
  
  


> My dear Miss Fisher,
> 
>  
> 
> I put pen to paper again in the hopes that writing will alleviate my cravings. It is you that I crave, my darling, and with each passing day I miss you more and more. This evening I am feeling adrift as this ship takes me far away from the life I know. Your reassuring presence is much needed now, for I have fears that I know only you would understand and be quick to appease. I have come to depend on our friendship to anchor me to what’s real, and mine, and true. 
> 
>  
> 
> The taste of your kiss still lingers in my tongue and mouth after all this time. Has it really been that long, Phryne mine, since I held you close and drank from your lips? If eternity could be measured, love, then this is the measure of eternity. 
> 
>  
> 
> How is it possible that I am homesick for your embrace and your warmth, when I have not spent a full minute laying in your arms yet? I ache to be near you, around you, inside you. I want to get lost with you, in you. If it were to happen, I would never want to be found. 
> 
>  
> 
> Darling, I may be addicted to a nectar I have yet not tasted. But if there be a cure, I don’t wish to be healed. I have long ago given up on my battles against the nature of my feelings for you. I am theirs as much as they are mine. I am yours irrevocably, irreparably. And you are the world’s, you exquisite creature. No man or woman would dare own or tame you. If there’s a single living soul that believes your wings can be clipped, I’d like to see them try. It is the certainty that you would not stop for nothing (for no one) what makes your invitation to go after you all the more precious to me.
> 
>  
> 
> And it is not only the promise of gaudy nights ahead of us that makes missing you so excruciating. In you, my love, I have my best friend. I miss looking into the jewels that are your eyes and feeling that you understand me. They pierce my soul every time they contemplate me- and how could they not? Why would they not? My soul is those eyes’ to do as they wish. Was the sound of your laughter that enchanted me? I don’t know. But ever since I met you I’ve been under your spell. I don’t want to break free from your magic, ever. I’ll be yours for as long as you'll have me. I will still be yours long after that, too. I will always be yours.
> 
>  
> 
> Our friendship has made me a better man, Phryne mine. My debt to you will be eternal, for you have shown me I can still feel hope in a world that I thought to have become hopeless. My hearts feel lighter, richer, when I’m with you. You have made mine a life worth living when I thought I had miss my chance at having one. That is something I have known before I admitted to myself that I love you, dear. Only with your friendship you managed to heal the wounds that I was still licking after all those years. I can only imagine what you’ll be capable of doing to my scarred soul once I lay it bare at your feet.
> 
>  
> 
> You restore in me the sense of belonging. The friendship you give me has become a sanctuary that I can call ‘home’, if only in my most private, intimate thoughts. I haven’t felt that in a long time. Scared and scarred as I was trying to survive the aftermath of the worst years of my life, I never once stopped to look around and drink in the beauty the world still has in it. At least not until you ran into me and made me stop. You made me realise the world still has got so much to offer, and that it is not selfish of me to take it all and enjoy it. You made me look around and realise all was not lost. You showed me that beauty, and I became enamoured with it. I fell for it as fast and as hard as I fell for you, my dear Phryne. 
> 
>  
> 
> The beauty of your friendship reopened my eyes to the beauty of the world.
> 
>  
> 
> And now I see it everywhere, and it hurts because you are not here with me to see it too. The seas are glorious, and the stars shine bright, and the sun feels like a warm caress when it dares come out. And you are not here with me to share it. But it makes it all the more beautiful, somehow; the ache I feel inside me every time I contemplate the world of possibilities you have given me reminds me that I am alive. My love for you reminds me of my mortality, my humanity. I have the capacity for love, therefore I am still alive. I haven’t died in the trenches and come back a ghost, like so many times I thought in the past. There is passion somewhere inside me, there are beautiful things the war didn’t success in killing. They were just dormant before I met you. They were just hiding before your friendship, your kindness, your loveliness made them realise it was safe to come out. And if not safe, then worth whatever risks await. 
> 
>  
> 
> I am not a poet, my dear Miss Fisher. I am just a simple man, a common man. But I am yours. I belong to you, my love. I am yours to keep. I know that I shouldn’t, but I pray that you keep me. And then I scold myself because I know how you’d feel if you knew that the only wish in my heart is that you keep me, want me, make me yours, for as long as we both shall live.
> 
>  
> 
> I should stop writing now, dear. I am tired, and I miss you, and I am not making any sense. The comfort and pleasure I find in writing to you is the closer I can get to feeling the way our friendships makes me feel. Worthy, and human, and alive. Adrift as I am right now, making my way to you, I can’t wait to be in your embrace and breathe you in and call you ‘home’. The day I see you, and kiss you, and love you, and let you anchor me to the world… That day can’t come fast enough.
> 
>  
> 
> I shall keep waiting. I shall keep writing. I shall keep hoping. What do I hope for? You. Just you. Your friendship, your smile, your laughter, your kisses, your voice. Whatever you want to give to me, I’ll take it and call it mine. And I’ll treasure it and hold it dear. It will be my most adored possession, I can assure you. Our friendship already is. 
> 
>  
> 
> I love you, my darling. I long for you. I love you. I love you. I love you. The more I say it, the more I know it is true. It will always be true. It will always be my salvation. This love will always be my home.
> 
>   
>    
>    
>    
>    
>    
>    
> 

_ I wanna get lost with you _

_ It's the only thing I wanna do _

_ Get out of my mind with you _

_ So come on over _

 

_ I Wanna Get Lost With You _ \- Stereophonics 


	12. Chapter 12

“It's a kindness that the mind can go where it wishes.”

Ovid

  


“Heart thoughts are profound, hindsight aches and hope is obscure. I'm craving a great adventure -- one that leads me back home.”

Donna Lynn Hope

  


“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.”

Christian Morgenstern

  


_Blame it on the black star_  
_Blame it on the falling sky_ _  
_ Blame it on the satellite that beams me home

 

 _Black Star_ \- Radiohead

  
  
  


 

 

> My darling Miss Fisher,
> 
>  
> 
> It is either very late at night or very early in the morning. I cannot tell. I do not care. I was laying in my coat, my eyes wide open and my empty arms craving the warmth of your body. Sleep has eluded me once more because the craving is too strong it will not leave me be. It will not let me rest. I cannot, for the life of me, stop thinking about you. It is consuming. Your absence makes me homesick, but it is not Melbourne I am homesick for. It is you. It is always you. You are the beginning, and the middle, and the end of all things for me, Miss Fisher. You are the answer to every question I have ever asked myself, the answer to every riddle I have ever been presented with. You, always you, Phryne mine.
> 
>  
> 
> I saw the young writer on the deck again today. He looked very enthusiastic, putting pen to paper and scribbling away at a speed that it is no wonder the front of his shirt wound up spilled with fresh, black ink. He was so concentrated on whatever it was he was working on that the rest of the world seemed to go unnoticed for him. It was as if he was existing by himself in a parallel universe far away from ours, and I was peering inside it through an invisible window whilst he wrote undisturbed by the good and bad, the ups and downs that we know so very well. He'd stop to reread his work from time to time, and every time he did he'd smile. It looked as if among his own words he was at home. I must confess I envied him.
> 
>  
> 
> I wish I knew exactly where my home is now. I know who my home is, and how she is, but the exact point in the map where she currently is remains a mystery. If I were given a planisphere and asked to point where you are, my answer would be vague for I don't know it exactly. It's driving me mad, for I am a very organised man that takes pride in caring for his possessions- and how can I properly care for my heart if I don't know where in this vast, vast world it is?
> 
>  
> 
> It may sound as if I were complaining. Perhaps I am. Perhaps this will not be one of my best letters, dear. Maybe after I've finished writing it I will tear the paper in half, and then those halves in other halves, and so on until it disappeared. Perhaps this is a letter that won't make it to the carefully kept stash where the rest are. I often wonder what the fate of all of these letters will be, if I'll ever give them to you, if I'll keep them to myself. Will I destroy them all, burn them all? Will they make it with me to London or will they be lost as I make my way to your loving, welcoming arms? Only time will tell, I guess.
> 
>  
> 
> I'll let myself imagine, if just for the briefest of moments, that the letters make it to London- and to you- with me and in one piece. This one, too. Let's imagine I do keep this letter with the others. I take them all with me to London, and to you, and we meet there in that big city, and we go on expressing our feelings and our passion with the intense madness that you are so well known for (and that made me fall in love with you in the first place.)
> 
>  
> 
> Imagine that at some point I give these letters to you. It doesn't have to happen during our journey in Europe, not necessarily. Maybe I will give them to you when we're both back in Melbourne. Maybe I will give them to you long after this is all over (I hope it is never over, my love, you just don't know how much. But I've always been realistic and I've got a good head on my shoulders, so I must not blind myself: there is a chance that this will end someday, somehow, just like there is a chance every single thing that is today won't be anymore in the future.) Maybe this will not be over and I will give them to you many years from now. I have no way of knowing. But let's imagine that I give them to you some day, that I share them with you. And that you read them. Yes, let's imagine that you read them all, one by one, and maybe you will have me read some of them to you (I don't want to think of how much I’d like that.)
> 
>  
> 
> I wonder what you would think of these letters, Phryne. Would they be too much? Would the bearing of my soul push you away from my arms that are hungry for yours? Am I making a mistake in thinking that you may want to read these words? Sometimes I think I should rip them apart, burn them, throw them out into the sea. Sometimes I think I should let them become ashes, keep the words forever locked inside my heart, and inside my head. Should I? I don’t know. It eats me up, the doubt. I keeps me up at night, sometimes. I think it is, in part, keeping me up tonight.
> 
>  
> 
> Look at the mess I have made of myself, my darling Miss Fisher! I am on a ship that is taking me far away from everything I know, from the life I’ve built for myself after the war ended my marriage and the man I used to be before I set foot in Europe to fight for King and Country. And it’s all for love- the kind of love I never thought I’d get to experience. It’s all for love, and I do not regret a single second of this adventure I’ve embarked on. I do not regret my coming after you. But sometimes I get so scared the madness that I feel when it comes to you, my darling, will tear us apart. What if this love that is so profound it bends me over at its mercy and has me kneeling down and praying eventually tears us apart? I am so scared of losing what it has not yet begun. And if I lost you, I’d be homeless.
> 
>  
> 
> Those are some of the reasons why I don’t know if I should give you these letters. What if the depths of my feelings for you scares you away? What if you think that by loving you the way I do I am trying to imprison you? I would never try to clip your wings, my love. You value freedom more than anything in the world, and I wouldn’t have you any other way. But I’d hate to think that there is even the possibility that you’d think I believe you belong to me because I love you. I don’t think you belong _to_ me- I want you to belong _with_ me. There is a difference, and many men and women may not be aware of it, but I am. It is not the same, belonging _to_ someone than belonging _with_ someone. I don’t want you to think for a moment that I can’t tell you would never belong to someone. But if you want to belong with someone, then I would very much like you to belong with me. I hope that if you ever read this you will see that all the love my words hold I would never attempt to use to build a prison around you. I would never try to cage you, love. I want you and adore you just the way you are. I want and adore your free spirit that mine so desperately wants to belong with.
> 
>  
> 
> My eyes are heavy with sleep now, but I don’t want to go back to lay in my coat. I wish I could lay in your arms. I wonder when I’ll finally be in the warmth of your embrace. I wonder if when the time comes I will still have these letters with me. Right now I am not sure of the fate they will run. What I’m certain of is that I will keep writing them. They do me good, as do you. I miss you so much, my love, and writing to you makes me feel closer somehow. It is as though by scribbling sentence after sentence I am trying to find my way home, like the young writer I saw on the deck.
> 
>  
> 
> I will write to you again later, darling Phryne. Whether you ever read them or not, these letters are yours, as is my heart. As is everything I am, everything I will ever be. I’m all yours, my dear. My Phryne. My love.
> 
>  
> 
> I love you.

  
  
  
  


_Get a taste in my mouth_

_As desperation takes hold_

_Is it something so good_

_Just can’t function no more?_

_When love, love will tear us apart again_

  
_Love Will Tear Us Apart -_ Joy Division


End file.
